EUR/PLN likely to rise towards 4.25 mark over the near-term, says Commerzbank

The EUR/PLN currency pair is expected to rise towards the 4.25 mark in the near term, according to the latest research report from Commerzbank.

Polish inflation has been steadily accelerating and reached 3 percent y/y in December from 2.4 percent in November (by Eurostat’s HICP definition). Initially, Polish policymakers had described the inflation overshoot as a food and energy problem – nevertheless, core inflation has also exceeded target now, and in fact, exceeded headline inflation at 3.1 percent y/y in December.

Indeed, core inflation has accelerated steadily since last summer, and this development coincided with a strong spurt in GDP and employment growth.

What is more, in today’s era of headlines and buzzwords, Poland is now attracting the wrong kind of attention also because its inflation rate has breached the ‘Maastricht criterion’ (for the first time since May 2013): the criterion worked out to 1.9 percent for December compared with which Poland’s own 12-month average HICP inflation rate rose to 2.1 percent, the report added.

"NBP has at least some hawks on the council – but at this time, we reckon that the central bank will struggle to make adjustments to the stronger inflation data," Commerzbank further commented in the report.